Under the Gun: Fight for stiffer straw purchase penalties continues

PLYMOUTH ­­— A Montgomery County police chief and a state legislator are working on strengthening the laws aimed at reducing gun trafficking.

Plymouth Police Chief Joseph Lawrence testified in Washington, D.C., on March 12 in favor of the proposed, federal Gun Trafficking Prevention Act of 2013. The bipartisan House bill would prohibit the purchase or transfer of a firearm if the intent is to deliver the firearm to someone who is prohibited by federal or state law from possessing a firearm. The penalty would be up to 20 years imprisonment for a conviction.

The penalties for “straw purchasers” who provide false or misleading material information when they purchase firearms also includes up to 20 years imprisonment. This provision gives law enforcement a tool to get information from straw purchasers about other members of a gun trafficking network.

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The bill would create a federal firearms trafficking statute for the first time.

A similar gun trafficking law was adopted by the Senate Judiciary Committee on March 7 on a bipartisan basis.

Lawrence was accompanied by Plymouth Detective Jeff McGee for the two-hour Congressional gun forum at the Cannon House Office Building, Lawrence said.

“They asked me to tell the story of the murder of (Plymouth Police) Officer Brad Fox,” Lawrence said, “and how the person who shot him bought a gun through a straw purchase. I spoke for five to 10 minutes.”

“This was a senseless act committed not by just one murderer but by two,” Lawrence said at the forum, referring to Fox’s killer, a convicted felon, and the straw purchaser who provided the shooter with seven handguns and two rifles.

“It was shocking to myself and to the police chief from San Francisco that there is not a federal law on the purchase of firearms for straw purchasers. This could be an oversight,” Lawrence said. “It was nice to see the government working together, all in strong support of this.”

San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr told the forum about a gun trafficking ring in which a convicted felon recruited his girlfriend and her father to buy more than 100 guns in Atlanta and ship them to California. The guns ended up in the hands of a juvenile, an armed robbery suspect on parole, a convicted felon and several drug traffickers.

“The consequences of straw sales of firearms in San Francisco can be seen in the constant recovery of firearms in criminal and non-criminal cases,” Suhr said, “where the record of ownership is not to the person found with the firearm.”

At the same forum, Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey said, “Straw purchasing is a national problem pervading every major city in America. This ‘free pass’ to buy guns is used by gangs, local drug dealers and transnational gangs and cartels. We are here today to sound a call to action.”

Lawrence said the proposed federal law would not impinge on the Second Amendment rights of legitimate gun owners.

“I’m in favor of strengthening the punishment for the straw purchase of a gun. It does not affect anyone’s right to own a firearm,” Lawrence said. “It only prohibits someone from selling or giving a firearm to someone who cannot possess a firearm.”

Lawrence was confident the House and Senate bills will eventually become law.

“I’m 99.99 percent sure this is going to pass,” he said. “I don’t know anyone who would be against this bill.”

State Rep. Marcy Toepel, R-147th Dist., worked for more than two years to get a Pennsylvania law passed that imposes a mandatory five-year sentence for a second offense when a gun bought by a legitimate gun buyer is resold to someone not allowed to own or possess firearms.

Recently, she recalled the struggle to get what eventually was called the “Brad Fox Law” signed by Gov. Tom Corbett in January.

“Two years ago I introduced the legislation. It was voted out of the House Judiciary committee, which I chair. That was a unanimous vote. Within a month it was scheduled for a House vote. It passed 186 to 10. It moved out of the House quickly,” Toepel said. “Then it sat in the Senate for a year.”

Fox was shot and killed Sept. 13, 2012, near the Schuylkill River Trail with a gun purchased by a Philadelphia man, Michael J. Henry, and resold to Andrew Thomas of Lower Merion. Fox had pursued Thomas from a hit-and-run traffic accident and was shot by Thomas with the gun.

Thomas was on probation from a 2005 forgery arrest in Upper Merion and was not permitted to possess firearms. He killed himself after shooting Fox.

After the shooting, Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman called Toepel and told her the Fox shooting was directly related to the bill Toepel had been working on.

“It took on more importance very quickly,” Toepel said. “We worked with Sen.(Stewart) Greenleaf, (R-Dist. 12) Sen. (Robert) Mensch (R-Dist. 24) and Sen. (Daylin) Leach, (D-Dist. 17), who were all supportive. We had three days left in the legislative session to get it passed without amendments in the Senate.”

Toepel said keeping amendments off the gun control bill was difficult because “gun bills attract amendments.”

“It ran clean, out of the Senate,” she said. “It passed 49-0 and it went right to the governor for his signature.”

Corbett first signed the bill on Oct. 25, 2012 and then ceremonially signed the bill a second time on Jan. 11 at the Harmonville Fire Company in Plymouth with Fox’s widow, Lynsay Fox, the Fox family and more than 100 Montgomery County police officers and local politicians in attendance.

“Gun violence is a problem not only in urban areas but in rural areas. This law gives law enforcement another tool to combat gun violence,” Toepel said. “We will see some prosecutions because it closed a loophole in the law for the mandatory minimums. When you have five years mandatory minimum on each count that is a strong deterrent.”

Toepel said that Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams had recently thanked her for the bill’s passage.

“Gun violence is a huge problem in Philadelphia,” she said. “They were extremely pleased that this bill passed.”